As
a member of the National Rifle Association, I regularly receive its
magazine, The American Rifleman. In the December 2015 issue appears
an editorial by Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s Executive Vice President,
entitled “Obama, Hillary Embrace Gun Confiscation”. Although
this observation of present political facts should hardly surprise anyone,
it rightly vexes Mr. LaPierre, because of the dark history of “gun
control” in Britain and especially in Australia—where confiscation
went forward (according to him) “[t]o assuage an insane notion
of collective guilt to impose a national gun ban”, and “will
never end until the last firearm is removed from private hands”.

Now,
most astute observers understand that, although the systematic disarming
of Britons and Australians by their own rogue public officials over
the years “will never end until the last firearm is removed from
private hands”, it never has had anything, and today has nothing,
to do with psychobabble about “collective guilt”, or even
some “insane notion”, but instead was and is the product
of a coldly calculated policy contrived by political elitists who were,
and remain, intent upon creating in those benighted nations the conditions
necessary for the imposition and perpetuation of police states. These
events have been, in no small measure, “models” or “test
beds” for the same tactics to be employed against the United States,
for the same ultimate purpose. So I wonder whether Mr. LaPierre really
imagines that, as leading political elitists in this country, Mr. Obama
and Mrs. Clinton espouse confiscation of Americans’ firearms simply
because they supposedly suffer from “collective guilt”,
or are the victims of “insane notion[s]”. After all, America’s
rogue public officials have generally proven themselves to be ruthless
political racketeers whose every exercise of real or imaginary power
demonstrates that a police state in this country appeals to them far
more than what the Second Amendment calls “a free State”.
Arguably, these miscreants might be found guilty of numerous crimes,
or perhaps even be diagnosed as “insane” in some sense—all
too many political figures in high offices in the Western World today
being at least subject to suspicion as narcissistic psychopaths. Yet
there is method in what might be deemed their madness with respect to
“gun control”. And it is their method which must be opposed,
whether they are cunning criminals who deserve condign punishment, or
merely pitiable wretches who suffer from some mental disease or defect.

Which
brings me to my dissatisfaction with Mr. LaPierre’s editorial.
He frets that Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton “would alter the makeup
of the U.S. Supreme Court with the goal of overturning the landmark
decisions that have recognized the sanctity of the Second Amendment
in guaranteeing our right to keep and bear arms.” (Here, he refers
to the Court’s recent Heller and McDonald decisions.)
But if those decisions had ruled against the construction of the Second
Amendment which Mr. LaPierre favors (as, by merely one vote among the
Justices, they almost did), would he now be so enthusiastic about preserving
them? Or would he, precisely in the fashion of Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton
(and many others of their political coloration), be in favor of “alter[ing]
the makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court with the goal of overturning th[os]e
* * * decisions”? The answer to that question is obvious.

Unfortunately,
Mr. LaPierre seems to embrace the fallacy known as “judicial supremacy”:
the notion that the Constitution means whatever some decision of the
Supreme Court says that it means. In practice, this reduces to the perverse
conclusion that the Constitution must be taken to mean whatever the
fifth fool who creates a majority among the Justices happens to believe
at the time, no matter how obviously wrong that belief may be. So America
is controlled by “a government of men”, all too fallible
and corruptible, not “a government of laws” the meanings
of which are capable of objective determination.

The
truth is, however, that a decision of the Supreme Court does not determine
whether the Constitution means this or that. Rather, the Constitution
determines whether a decision of the Supreme Court in favor of this
or that is correct or incorrect. We know that this must be the true
rule of constitutional construction, because—by their own admissions
in cases such as Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808, 828-830
& note 1 (1991)—the Justices have been wrong about the Constitution
in the past, time and again, and therefore can and surely will be wrong
in the future. Today they may hand down decisions such as Heller
and McDonald, which equivocally limit certain aspects of “gun
control”; and tomorrow they may concoct some hideous decisions
reversing Heller and McDonald in favor of “gun
control”. So as an institution the Court is a weak reed on which
to lean if the goal is to enforce the Constitution, as opposed to some
Justices’ idiosyncratic—perhaps idiotic—musings about
the Constitution.

To
his credit, Mr. LaPierre does realize that “judicial supremacy”
poses a practical political problem: namely, who are the Justices
to be? The Supreme Court is not a permanent group of wise men and women
who unerringly issue opinions in perfect conformity with the Constitution
as Mr. LaPierre understands (or perhaps misunderstands) it. The Court’s
composition changes over time. So the only way to ensure that his interpretation
of the Second Amendment prevails is continually to “pack”
the Court with new Justices in sympathy with that interpretation. But
to “pack” the Court requires control of the White House
and the Senate, the joint efforts of which determine the Court’s
composition. So Mr. LaPierre calls upon the NRA’s members to “organize
as never before and stand united in voting to save the Second Amendment
in November 2016”.

The
problem is that America cannot rely on elected politicians to enforce
the Constitution (even if the elections are actually honest). After
all, since the 1930s who has enacted the various “gun-control”
statutes which Mr. LaPierre hopes the Supreme Court will eventually
strike down as “infringe[ments]” of “the right of
the people to keep and bear Arms”, if not Members of Congress
in league with various Presidents? If these people could have been,
or their successors could now be, trusted to defend what Mr. LaPierre
calls “the sanctity of the Second Amendment”, why would
anyone be concerned with the present or the future composition of the
Supreme Court? There would be no issues of “gun control”
to come before the Court. And if these people cannot be trusted with
the defense of the Second Amendment today or tomorrow—just as
History proves that their predecessors could not be trusted in yesteryears—then
how can they be trusted to appoint Justices to the Supreme Court who
will defend that Amendment any more rigorously than they themselves
have failed to defend it?

The
undeniable political fact is that Congress, the President, and the Supreme
Court are unstable and untrustworthy institutions which need
to be closely supervised and controlled at all times, especially between
elections. The very existence of the Constitution—replete with
“checks and balances” as it is—proves as much. Moreover,
the existence of the Second Amendment—or any other provision of
the Constitution—by itself guarantees nothing. The Constitution
is not self-interpreting and self-executing. Its “checks and balances”
must be understood, and then put into operation—religiously, rigorously,
even ruthlessly. And for that purpose WE THE PEOPLE cannot rely solely
upon their ostensible “representatives” in any branch of
government. For those “representatives”—whether through
ignorance, indolence, insouciance, self-interest, or criminal inclinations—may
turn out to be the sources of the problem. To defend the Constitution,
WE THE PEOPLE must depend upon themselves. They are the authors of the
Constitution. As its authors, they are its final interpreters. And to
ensure that their interpretations are taken seriously by public officials,
they must be its ultimate enforcers. But how are WE THE PEOPLE to accomplish
this task?

To
answer this question requires no more than to read the Constitution.
The only stable and trustworthy establishments the Constitution incorporates
within its federal system are “the Militia of the several States”.
They are stable and trustworthy because they are always composed of
the sovereigns themselves, WE THE PEOPLE, not merely some ever-mutating
gaggle of possibly incompetent or disloyal “representatives”.
If THE PEOPLE themselves cannot be trusted to exercise their own sovereignty
in their own interest, who can be? Certainly no one else in what the
Second Amendment calls “a free State”—that is, a polity
based upon popular self-government. In the final analysis, in “a
free State” THE PEOPLE can depend upon no one other than themselves
to maintain their freedom.

That
is why the Second Amendment itself declares that “well regulated
Militia” are “necessary to the security of a free State”.
Not the Supreme Court—not Congress—not the President—not
the NRA and all of its efforts in lobbying, litigation, electioneering,
and public education—not isolated individuals trying to exercise
the so-called “individual right to keep and bear arms”—not
even those private groups which ignorantly style themselves “militia”.
No, not any one of these alone, or any combination of a few of them,
or even all of them together, but instead “well regulated Militia”
defined (as Virginia’s Declaration of Rights so accurately defined
them in 1776) as “composed of the body of the people, trained
to arms”. Not just some of “the people”—but
“the body of the people”—“trained to arms”
so as to secure the Power of the Sword in the hands of the sovereigns
themselves.

If
in the last several decades the NRA, and Americans in general, had payed
due attention to all twenty-seven words in the Second Amendment—and
particularly the first thirteen, not just the last fourteen on which
the NRA dotes—patriots would not have to worry about the legalistic
clap-trap some majority of Justices of the Supreme Court might spew
out in favor of “gun control”. For there would be no
“gun control” as we know it today. If the Militia existed
as the Constitution requires that they exist, Mr. LaPierre would have
no occasion to rail against such “gun-control” fanatics
as one Fred Hiatt, of The Washington Post, whom Mr. LaPierre
quotes as calling for a “cultural shift” which will lead
to “[a] gun-free society’”. Of course, Mr. Hiatt does
not actually propose “[a] gun-free society” in the fullest
sense of those words. No, indeed. In the society he advocates, regular
armed forces and para-militarized police departments and other
“law-enforcement agencies”—all of them equivalent
to large or small “standing armies”—would have guns,
and plenty of them. And out of the barrels of those guns these “standing
armies” would impose, under the guise of “martial law”
or other “emergency powers”, the policies that Mr. Hiatt
and his co-thinkers want to see directed against common Americans—Americans
who, because they were thoroughly disarmed, would be unable to mount
any defense against those policies, not matter how tyrannical they might
be. To be sure, Mr. Hiatt himself may be simply another muddled “liberal”,
incapable of coherent thinking along constitutional lines, rather than
a self-conscious totalitarian. But the “gun-free society”
he advocates would, of necessity, be nothing less than the opposite
of what the Second Amendment calls “a free State”: namely,
“a[n un]free State”. (Perhaps for him, too, as well as for
the vast majority of his countrymen.)

Mr.
LaPierre no doubt understands, and rightly fears, this outcome. But,
in opposing it, he fails to bring to bear against it the full armamentarium
the Constitution provides. The last fourteen words of the Second Amendment
are not enough. The first thirteen are, as they themselves attest, “necessary”.
WE THE PEOPLE must exercise “the right * * * to keep and bear
Arms”, without “infringe[ment]”, through “well
regulated Militia”—and not just to resist “martial
law”, “emergency powers”, and other manifestations
of usurpation and tyranny; but also to do everything else that “well
regulated Militia” could do, and would do, and must do today that
would have nothing to do with resisting usurpation and tyranny, but
everything to do with providing “the security of a free State”
from other, perhaps more immediate, dangers.

I
have written extensively about this subject in many of my columns for
NewsWithViews, and in books such as The Sword and Sovereignty, Thirteen
Words, Three Rights, and By Tyranny Out of Necessity: The Bastardy of
“Martial Law”. Yet tireless repetition of this message
appears to be obligatory upon me in particular, as vanishingly few people
seem to be paying any attention—not so much to me, but to the
Constitution. As an NRA firearms instructor, I am well aware from my
training that no amount of repetition of the NRA’s three basic
rules of firearms safety—to wit, “always keep the gun pointed
in a safe direction”, “always keep your finger off the trigger
until ready to shoot”, and “always keep the gun unloaded
until ready to use it”—can ever be excessive. How much more
so for the most important teaching of the Constitution: to wit, that
“[a] well regulated Militia” is “necessary to the
security of a free State”? Can any number of reiterations of this
precept be too many? More importantly, can its implementation be left
in abeyance?

The
question I put to Mr. LaPierre, to the NRA in general, and to all of
the rest of the self-styled advocates of the Second Amendment is: “When
do you intend to take this admonition seriously?” When it is too
late?

No
one can doubt that the herd of “gun-control” fanatics stampeding
throughout this country today poses a clear and present danger to “a
free State”. But no less—and perhaps more—dangerous
are the supposed champions of the Second Amendment for whom only its
last fourteen words have any significance. The “gun-control”
fanatics at least understand what is at stake. Their constant attacks
on so-called “assault” firearms, “high-capacity”
magazines, and the most effective types of ammunition prove that they
want to make revitalization of the Militia impossible, under any circumstances,
by denying Americans the ability to possess the very equipment which
is peculiarly apt for Militia service.

The
counter-arguments from defenders of the Second Amendment that this equipment
may be useful for individuals’ self-defense against common criminals,
or even against real domestic “terrorists”, although true
in principle is largely beside the point in practice. For this equipment
is not uniquely useful for those purposes, and in many instances would
not be useful at all (as most individuals are unlikely to be out and
about in society on a daily basis with AR-15 rifles slung on their shoulders.)

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The
real constitutional argument against contemporary “gun control”
lies in the first thirteen words of the Second Amendment. Namely, that
every American eligible for the Militia—which includes every able-bodied
adult man and woman (other than conscientious objectors)—has a
right, and more importantly a duty, to possess whatever firearms can
serve any purpose in the Militia, under any circumstances in which the
Militia might be called forth. Constitutional “gun control”
requires the possession of firearms of every description by every American
eligible for the Militia. (Not that every American would necessarily
possess every type of firearm; but that no American would be denied
a right to possess any type of firearm.) Every self-styled advocate
of the Second Amendment who denies this, or who simply evades the matter
entirely, turns other Americans away from the constitutional solution
to “gun control”, and thereby actually aids and abets the
proponents of “gun control”. It may be that these people
are motivated by good, if misguided, intentions. But the road to Hell
is paved with good intentions, all of them misguided. And this country
is too far down that road already to tolerate further misdirection.

Edwin Vieira, Jr., holds four
degrees from Harvard: A.B. (Harvard College), A.M. and Ph.D. (Harvard
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences), and J.D. (Harvard Law School).

For more than thirty years he has
practiced law, with emphasis on constitutional issues. In the Supreme
Court of the United States he successfully argued or briefed the cases
leading to the landmark decisions Abood v. Detroit Board of Education,
Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, and Communications Workers of America
v. Beck, which established constitutional and statutory limitations on
the uses to which labor unions, in both the private and the public sectors,
may apply fees extracted from nonunion workers as a condition of their
employment.

He has written numerous monographs
and articles in scholarly journals, and lectured throughout the county.
His most recent work on money and banking is the two-volume Pieces
of Eight: The Monetary Powers and Disabilities of the United States
Constitution (2002), the most comprehensive study in existence of American
monetary law and history viewed from a constitutional perspective. www.piecesofeight.us

He is also the co-author (under
a nom de plume) of the political novel CRA$HMAKER:
A Federal Affaire (2000), a not-so-fictional story of an engineered crash
of the Federal Reserve System, and the political upheaval it causes. www.crashmaker.com

The
counter-arguments from defenders of the Second Amendment that this equipment
may be useful for individuals’ self-defense against common criminals,
or even against real domestic “terrorists”, although true
in principle is largely beside the point in practice.